Election | SLEEPING WITH PENGOVSKY

The State of Muddy Hollows Play, part 1: Party Like It’s 1939

It has been… checks notes… more than a month since pengovsky posted anything on the state of play in Muddy Hollows. There were things to see and people to do and whatnot, but still apologies are in order. So, yeah..

Slovenian PM Janez Janša during a meeting of the coalition that kind of runs the show in Muddy Hollows — *The Glorious Leader at a coalition pow-wow (source)*

But shit did not stop going down in Slovenia and both readers were pleading, nay, screaming for an update. Which turned into an update series. Because who wants to read a five-thousad-words blogpost? Anyway, it so happens that said updates include pigeons, turncoats and rebrandings. They will also introduce a shitload of new parties, suspicious public opinion polls and overt hints to a Trump playbook. Oh, and a letter from the Glorious Leader.

Borut Pahor And Election Deflection

Some ten days ago, president Pahor announced his intention to schedule parliamentary election in Muddy Hollows for Sunday, 24 April 2022. Ordinarily, this would have been huge fucking news. And it was. For about fifteen minutes.

Ballot box used in Slovenian elections. — *The ballot box. The image is not yet purely symbolic.*

Careful observers, however, noted almost immediately that the language Pahor used was, well, Pahoresque. That, in fact, the announcement was not really an announcement. Rather, it was an announcement of an announcement of an intention. That is was, en bref, a load of bullshit with the sole aim of deflecting heat off the back of PM Janez Janša.

If You Don’t Like The Way The Table Is Set, Turn Over The Table

To say that today’s resignation of prime minister Marjan Šarec and his call to early election took everyone by surprise would be a gross understatement. It is, in fact, more akin to yelling “fire!” in a crowded theatre, lobbing a canister of mace in the crowd and letting an alligator loose.

*PM Šarec during his resignation address (source)*

Šarec clearly demonstrated that he gives a grand total of zero fucks about how all of this plays out. Such lack of political self-preservation instinct is a rarity in Muddy Hollows nowadays. That said, however, one must consider the immortal words of Francis Underwood: If you don’t like the way the table is set, turn over the table.

2018 Parliamentary Election: Break Out The Popcorn

The results were in on Sunday night and… well, it is a clusterfuck. SDS won a relative majority with 25% of the vote and just as many seats in the parliament but party leader Janez Janša will be shitting Lego bricks trying to put together a workable coalition. Far behind SDS in second place is LMŠ of Marjan Šarec with 13 seats. After that, the field gets crowded. Social Democrats (SD) of Dejan Židan and SMC of Miro Cerar have 10 seats each, The Left have nine followed by NSi with seven. DeSUS of Karl Erjavec and SAB of Alenka Bratušek have five each. Rounding off the pack are Zmago Jelinčič’s nationalists (SNS) with four seats. This is the most fractured parliament Muddy Hollows has had in ages, and putting together a coalition will be a nightmare, No wonder there is plenty of talk of a repeat vote in six months’ time.

Unofficial final tally (more data at source)

However, upon closer inspection things get even more interesting. First, the fact that Zmago Jelinčič and his SNS have barely made it above the 4-percent threshold and remain vulnerable to either results of absentee votes or potential legal challenges in individual precincts. More importantly, and possibly with great ramifications for coalition negotiations, neither Alenka Bratušek nor Karl Erjavec were elected to the parliament. Which means both will have a critical interest in joining coalition where they will serve as ministers. Given that they control ten votes between them, this is a distinct possibility.

Continue reading 2018 Parliamentary Election: Break Out The Popcorn

2018 Parliamentary Election: Five Takeaways Of Week One

The 2018 parliamentary election campaign in Muddy Hollows is in full swing and while pengovsky was going to write up a couple of post on the matter, adutling is hard af, requiring him to play catch-up. On the other hand, as a general rule, the less political parties can offer in terms of a platform, the more they tend to try and entice emotional responses, engage in divisive rhetoric and generally muddy the waters. Which is why one has to occasionally look back and separate the important from the fluffy.

Latest polling numbers and trends by Volilna napoved poll aggregator site (source)

So, without further ado, here are a few takeaways from Week One of the utter shit-show the 2018 Slovenian parliamentary election is shaping up to be.

Continue reading 2018 Parliamentary Election: Five Takeaways Of Week One